Speaking at The New York Meeting on Monday, Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) took a firm stance against illegal immigration, saying massive illegal immigration angers legal immigrants and threatens to balkanize America.

Panelists who were more moderate on immigration policy tried to nudge McClintock to the left on the issue, but he stood his ground.

“A lot of immigrants that I talk to… are the maddest about illegal immigration because they’re the ones who stood patiently in line, and obeyed all of our laws, came here with a sincere desire to become Americans, and they are watching 11 million people trying to cut in line and flout our laws,” McClintock said. “I have found that legal immigrants, those people who came here in order to become Americans, are the angriest about illegal immigration and we need to appeal to them as well.”

McClintock, who many California conservatives ultimately believed would have been a better governor than Arnold Schwarzenegger, added that America was built on a common language, common culture, and a common appreciation of American legal and constitutional traditions

“If we allow illegal immigration, then there is no point to legal immigration,” he said.

McClintock said illegal immigration would destroy “the glue that holds this country together and unites us as one people made from all of the people’s from the world.”

McClintock said that rampant illegal immigration would result in the end of assimilation and what would result is a country that would begin “to disintegrate into divisions and factions.”

Mallory Factor and O’Brien Murray host The New York Meeting, which is held monthly. Fox’s David Asman, Forbes‘ Carrie Sheffield, and the Daily Mail‘s David Martosko made up Monday’s panel.